News

By Emma Needham

The Valley Blue Sox (6-3) of the NECBL took on the Ocean State Waves (2-6) in their eighth game of the season at MacKenzie Stadium on Sunday night. The Blue Sox pulled through for the win by a score of 4-3. 

The game began at 5:05 p.m., with the presenting sponsor, Cindy’s Drive-In, providing kiddie cups of their ice cream to the first 250 fans through the gates at MacKenzie Stadium for the ‘Sundae’s on a Sunday!’ promotion. 

Blue Sox fans enjoyed their ice cream during the beautiful night, where Grant Kipp of Yale University dominated on the mound for the first couple of innings, which went scoreless. 

“I’m really happy with this turnout.” Said Kipp. “From not playing in the Ivy League this season, it was really nice to get back out there and show what I can do.” The Ivy League Council of Presidents decided not to hold league competition or host league championships this past spring, which included baseball, so this summer season has been the first time post-pandemic in which Kipp and the other Ivy League players have competed. 

In the bottom of the fifth, Garrett Shultz of Xavier University had two RBI’s, bringing Luke Franzoni (Xavier) and Mason LaPlante (Yale) home to raise the score to 2-0. 

The Waves responded quickly with two runs of their own off of an Albert Choi (New Jersey Institute of Technology) hit that went past the fences at MacKenzie Stadium to tie the game at 2-2. 

The Waves pulled ahead in the top of the seventh, scoring a run to bring the game to 3-2. 

Valley’s offensive push began with a Cole Andrews (Miami) at-bat, the Blue Sox’ catcher who, on Friday, hit a walk off home run to win the game against the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks from behind by a score of 5-4. On Sunday, Andrews sent one high into center field, and got lucky, staying on first base when a Waves outfielder had trouble fielding the ball. LaPlante then made it to first, which advanced Andrews to second. Then, Shultz sent a highball way out near the fence, which gave Andrews and LaPlante just enough time to run home, making the score 4-3, and tallying Shultz’ RBI total at 3. 

The rest of the game went scoreless, with the Blue Sox successfully holding onto their lead in the highest attendance game of the 2021 season so far for the Blue Sox. 

Whether it was the free ice cream, or the great play, the result of this game made Head Coach Hez Randolph think that he “is doing something right.”

“Winning a close one like this makes me feel good, as nervous as I get, because this is my first year doing this. It’s a good feeling.” He continued. 

The Blue Sox will play again on Wednesday, June 17th, against the Bristol Blues at 6:35 p.m. at MacKenzie Stadium in Holyoke.